a dill ohs and using them for political game. now time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." have a great night. tonight, america has a new biggest loser. move over, sarah palin, you are now no longer the vice presidential candidate that will never be president. >> i know the election was a long time ago. >> one full week since election day. >> i wanted to refresh everyone's memories. >> we made this campaign about big ideas and big issues. >> big issues. >> just wasn't enough at the end of the day. >> that lost. >> they lost. >> this was a real shellacking. >> losing never feels good. >> we were surprised at the outcome. >> what are the lessons for conservatives? >> the primary problem is an economic message.

>> the problem is. >> a demographic problem. >> disrespecting women the last two years. >> we were surprised in the outcome. the president won the race, i congratulated him on the race. >> the republican party needs to get it together. >> the hard part is where you get there. >> congress returns for lame duck session. >> back from recess with a daunting task. >> to avert the fiscal cliff. >> the issue is taxes. >> the bush era tax cuts. >> i refuse to accept any approach that isn't balanced. the majority of americans agree with my approach. >> have a little swag. >> that's what the american people asked for. something must be done. >> so close but so far. >> time to do this simple thing. overshadowing that. >> commanders in crisis. >> the petraeus affair. >> we knew the other shoe was likely to drop. >> the story is changing by the hour. >> another top military general linked to the scandal. >> really? >> really. >> really? >> really. >> again? >> if it is not homeland -- >> one of them is our country's security. of the many mistakes mitt

romney made as a presidential candidate, perhaps none was more costly than choosing the presidential campaign's biggest loser, paul ryan, as his vice presidential candidate. florida was lost the day romney chose paul ryan whose plan to eviscerate medicare was rejected by florida voters. while was he at it, paul ryan helped mitt romney lose paul ryan's home state of wisconsin. paul ryan also managed to lose his hometown in wisconsin where he still lives. it wasn't paul ryan's youth and inexperience that sunk him, it was his ideas, his worship of ian rand and the ryan plan to end medicare as we know it and profoundly change america as we know it, but don't expect paul ryan to admit that any time soon.

>> the president wins 330 some electoral votes, does barack obama now have a mandate? >> i don't think so because they also reelected the house republicans. see, i think these ideas we talked about, i think they're popular ideas. this is a very close election. >> there is now nothing other than time in the gym that separates paul ryan and rush limbaugh. >> we're just laying down! and we didn't lose this election by that much, especially when you look at the turnout. this was not a shellacking landslide. >> this is what rush limbaugh used to think it meant when a presidential candidate won 332 electoral college votes and he thought this right up until the day before the election.

>> all of my thinking says romney big. not even close. 300 plus electoral votes for romney. >> even though president obama very clearly ran on raising income tax rates for top earners, paul ryan claims he is not so sure that's what america actually voted for. >> his argument is people voted for him because they believe tax rates should be raised. do you disagree? >> i don't know if i agree with that. we have divided government, they also voted for a clear majority. >> never mind that more votes were cast for democrats in the house of representatives than republicans. in the house, republicans maintained their majority, strictly through gerrymandering their districts, and never mind that election exit polls show that 13% of voters said they should increase all tax rates on everyone, and another 47% said increase tax rates for incomes over 250,000, so that adds up to

60% of americans in favor of at least the obama tax rate increases and some of them in favor of more. louisiana governor bobby jindal, one of the lucky ones who dodged the bullet in mitt romney's selection of a running mate tells politico to stop being the stupid party. we cannot be, we must not be the party that simply protects the rich. it can't be tolerated within our party. we have also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism, we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters. joining me now, msnbc's joy reed and ari melber.

stop being the stupid party. that's a tall order now for the republicans, isn't it? >> yeah. bobby jindal, i guess he has coherent advice. i am not sure if you look at his stance, teaching creationism in public schools, not sure he is going to help them in his own state, and it's interesting that paul ryan sort of made these assertions that we didn't really lose, we actually won because the house of representatives, he made a good point. look at florida. all of the republicans in swing districts, people who were the most associated with paul ryan's ideas, people like allen west, for instance, lost. they lost in those swing districts because those guys, especially west, who really championed paul ryan's ideas, went to bat for them, did town halls, contentious town halls defending the ryan budget he voted for twice. well, he lost. >> ari, it is not as if the

president had a great economy to run on. what he had to run on is if you elect me, this is what i'm in favor of, this is what i will do, and he got to say this is what the republicans will do if you elect them, and the republicans actually agreed this is what we will do if you elect us. we absolutely will protect the rich and we absolutely will turn medicare into something you don't recognize. >> i have a lot of thoughts here. number one is, you know, viewers of the last word will remember that you have also called this the stupid party, so you were ahead of the bobby jindal curve, and i don't know if you were trying to help them or not, clearly governor jindal feels that's what they need, they need to be told they sound stupid and look stupid and also mean, i would, you know, put that in there as well. i think the conversation is important, lawrence, and here is why. it is good to come off the election and do some interpretation. i will give credit to sean hannity and others who for

whatever reasons, without getting into motives, are finally coming around to a better, sane view about doing something about immigration reform in this country instead of just denigrating people, and they got there through math. when you look at interpreting results, bottom line, look, paul ryan has a talking point about the house. you could interpret the senate, too. only a third of the senate is up for election every two years because of the constitution. as you pointed out in the open, lawrence, only a small portion of the house is effectively up for election because of gerrymandering. anyone that follows politics understands paul ryan unlike some of his come pay tree atmosphere isn't dealing with the math yet. >> listen to what sean hannity said the republicans are going through right now. >> going to be a close race. >> been anger, criticism, circle a firing squad has been created, and i urge people to stand back from this, it happens every four years for the team that loses, some of it healthy, a lot of it unhealthy. >> as you point out, sean

hannity is doing some of the healthy criticism. he is one of the leaders right out of the gate saying we absolutely have to move left ward on immigration reform. and of course, joy, he's not going to admit it is a move left ward, but that's exactly what he is proposing. >> sean hannity speaks for what you might call the hack wing of the republican party, he is for whatever will help republicans get elected. that's what sean hannity does. i think the risk is that the base of the party is not going to be easily moved to the left. they still have to deal with people who for 30 years have been fed a message that this is your country, those people are trying to take it from you, those illegals as they like to call illegal immigrants are out to take what's yours, what you worked hard for. how do you, even if sean hannity, have great ratings on the radio, how do you tell that base to sit still for the hardcore, rock ribbed and 100% right valleys.

i understand how the hack part of the party can make the pivot, how do you get the base to. >> ari, there's a difference between the two top right wing radio talk show hosts. rush limbaugh is number one in ratings, sean hannity number two in radio talk ratings in this country. i think one of the differences is rush limbaugh doesn't actually care if republicans win. he wants them to win, but he's not going to adjust his thinking and his approach to things in order to help them win or guide them toward winning. sean hannity is actually much more of a practical politician in that sense, what joy unkindly calls a hack, but what sean hannity is doing is exactly what staffers are doing in the republican house of representatives right now, republican staffers in the senate are doing, they're looking at this and saying what

can we move on. we've got to move or we cannot win elections. it seems to me one of the big differences between rush and sean hannity is one of them really cares about republicans winning elections. >> yeah, i mean, that's the distinction. i think the problem there is one that david frum, a conservative who people have seen on msnbc and elsewhere in the post election period, david frum called it the conservative entertainment complex. to your point, lawrence, people like rush are completely in the entertainment part. >> 100%. >> and the conservative part is just part of the branding, but that's all it is. i don't mean branding like in politics, i mean branding to make money which rush limbaugh is good at, not good at much else. you won't hear any assessment of his role. the guy got out there, was a sexist, crude, mean guy, and it led to all sorts of things. you went to the democratic convention, saw fluke and others

punching hard, bloodying rush limbaugh in terms of politics, not bloodying his bottom line, not bloodying the big checks he gets to take home, which may be all he cares about. what we have to watch for those of us that care about the politics and outcome, who are the responsible people, and can any of us, even with disagreements make space for them. i welcome folks that want to come over, work on some of the problems together. >> and watching the limbaugh versus hannity battle this year is going to be fascinating because limbaugh is saying don't budge an inch on immigration. sean hannity saying let's move. and sean hannity is the one getting backed up by other republicans. haven't heard anyone backing up limbaugh. we will watch that war as it goes on. thank you both for joining me. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, the president met with liberal supporters in a closed door meeting at the white house today.

one of those supporters will join me next and i will try to get him to leak on national television every single thing the president said. wish me luck on that. and another episode of generals gone wild. general petraeus and allen and the way, way, way too many women in their lives. and the republican senator that wants the party to go all out liberal on some issues. guess who that is? tweet me your guesses who that is. one hint, some people think he is actually the most conservative republican senator. and finally tonight, the earliest presidential campaign endorsement in history, a major american newspaper endorsed a candidate today for election in 2016. tweet your guesses on who got that presidential endorsement for 2016 coming up. i always wait until the last minute.

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i am by my count, which could be wrong, the only person in the american media who is willing to admit that i cannot judge who among our generals is good or bad at waging war. i am like everyone else in media someone who deliberately avoided military service. my complete lack of military experience humbles me when it comes to analyzing military tactics, which is why i have never spoken a word of praise about the media's most praised military leader of our time, general david petraeus. though i don't know anything about warfare, i do know something about life, and i can tell you, we got some bat crap crazy generals these days when it comes to living their lives. that's coming up. americans are always ready to work hard for a better future.

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repeated today from jay carney. in a closed door meeting at the white house today with labor leaders and other liberal supporters, the president is reported by the huffington post to have said i am not going to budge. i said in 2010 that i am going to do this once and i meant it. the thing he did once, of course, was allowing a two year extension of bush tax rates for everyone, including top income earners. the president now wants to continue the bush tax rates for everyone except top income earners. such a bill passed the senate but is stuck in the house. if no such bill passes by end of the year, in january all the income tax rates will go back up to the clinton tax rates. so if republicans in the house succeed in preventing anything from happening this time, something will actually happen, and everyone's tax rates will go

up. joining me, justin reuben and ezra klein. ezra, i want to start with you on something. justin was in the room with the president today, i am going to torture him in a second to get what the president said. we have what's being treated as breaking news tonight by some of the newspapers that the president's tax revenue target in going forward is 1.6 trillion. it is something he said before when he said his opening position negotiating this is his past budget position. but what is the emphasis now on the 1.6 trillion in additional tax revenue due to where the tax discussions are going to go. >> they are looking for 1.6 trillion. but people are missing what's important about the white house position. what the white house is saying

and this matters for these negotiations, john boehner's position is he is open to revenue, but not if it includes increasing the top tax rate. he is only doing it through some mystery process of tax reform where you have a large amount of revenue, but still at 35% of the top tax rate or if boehner has his druthers, have a lower tax rate, maybe 28% as in simpson-bowles. the white house doesn't think the math will work out. they believe even when it can, you have to do such radical things like eliminating charitable deduction at the top brackets entirely, it wouldn't be worth doing if you could. their view, it is not a compromise to say in a future tax reform process you're going to get that money, they're not going to sign anything that doesn't include the top tax rate going up at the end of december. >> justin, you were in the room

with the president today. can you confirm that quote that the huffington post has, i am not going to budge, i said in 2010 i'm going to do this once and i meant it? >> i actually don't remember if those are his exact words, and also the president asked us to keep the contents of that meeting off the record, who said what. at the top level, that was the message which is what he said publicly. he campaigned on the idea we can't afford extension of bush tax cuts for the rich and that that's -- and nobody should be surprised he is going to stick to his guns on that. you talked about how unusual his commitment to veto that was, that's true, that's something that progressives really fought for last year. 250,000 people petitioned him to take that position and were working all year last year, ultimately when the president came out and did it, it was a big deal. obviously we were heartened to hear him reiterate that today. >> did anyone ask him if he was willing to go off the fiscal cliff in january if the republicans have not agreed with

him on these top tax brackets? >> you know, what i heard, i think what we said is you need to stick to your guns, and understand we will have your back. obviously everyone is hoping for the republicans to come to their senses, but if they don't at the end of the year, they're still clinging to this position that donald trump can't be asked to pay one single tiny cent more to help the country meet its needs and everything else needs to be kind of held hostage to that, then we can't get mugged again. america, we can't have another hostage situation, we have to stand firm. what i think all of us were saying to the president is we will have your back and their message obviously is we don't, this is not a place that -- this is not a place we can afford to give in, so that's a good sign. and the other thing they said

that they have been saying publicly, right, is there's a way to avoid this, and that's just what you said, it is just extend the tax rates for the middle class. that can be done now, it has already passed the senate. i think they're going to keep saying that and so are we so everybody understands if we end up in that situation whose fault it is. >> ezra, it is not just the people in that room that have the president's back, we have polling indicating a clear majority, 53% believe if we do go off the fiscal cliff, which as you know on this show was renamed the fiscal curve because it is one little step at the beginning, republicans will be to blame for those tax rates going up on everyone first week of january. >> on my book, they call it austerity crisis. everybody agrees fiscal cliff ain't great. this is how the white house sees it, they see it more broadly that they have a responsibility

here and responsibility to markets, economy, business, and job creators, and that responsibility is to end this period in american economic governance in which we are yo-yoing from one crisis to another. even if the republicans want to go over the cliff, the curve, the crisis, and we head into the debt ceiling, the white house is pretty intent on standing firm. they feel that this kind of legislating, this kind of hostage taking needs to be broken and that after this election and given what polling is showing now, what happened to republicans in the last election, they're in a place to break it. >> justin, can you tell us one thing the president said in the meeting, any good joke he told, anything? >> well, you know, one thing that i really heard from them was that they understand that this is a different situation than 2011 and 2010, that this

election was a mandate, political circumstances were different, and we have an opportunity now. one thing they have been talking about publicly and in this meeting was the need for investment in the short term that can create jobs. so you know, he said, the president said that's absolutely something that he wants to see in a deal, and obviously that's a good thing to hear as well. it wasn't a joke, but happens to be really important. >> that's the real deal. >> justin ruben of moveon.org, and ezra klein, thank you both for joining me. >> thank you. coming up, 2016 isn't too far away for one major newspaper, major newspaper endorsed a presidential candidate for 2016. that's coming up. and new names in the general

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the petraeus affair is now looking less like a spy movie and more like a reality tv show, the housewives of david petraeus. we will have the latest on the investigation next. and in the "rewrite," the rewriting of the republican party by one of its most conservative members who wants to move to the left, the left of the democratic party on some issues, that's coming up. ♪

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president feels about the mess that is the petraeus affair. in the spotlight tonight, another day, another four star general investigated. this time it is general john allen who took over as commander of the u.s. forces in afghanistan and petraeus became director of the cia. in october, allen was also nominated by the president to be the supreme allied commander in europe, but the white house put that nomination on hold after it found out that allen is currently being investigated by the defense department for sending potentially inappropriate and flirtatious e-mails to jill kelley, the same jill kelley who received questionable e-mails from paula broadwell. the fbi's investigation into those e-mails eventually revealed broadwell's affair with general petraeus which

eventually led to petraeus' resignation. remember her fbi friend that started the investigation? turns out he was also the person who called house majority leader eric cantor and told him what he knew. one more character connecting petraeus and allen in this messy web, jill's twin sister natalie, just weeks ago both generals wrote letters in support of natalie in a custody battle over her four-year-old son. "the washington post" is now reporting according to advisers close to petraeus, petraeus only resigned after national intelligence director james clapper told him to do so. joining me now, spencer ackerman, senior writer for "wired" who writes for their national security blog, the danger room, and nbc's richard wolffe.

richard, i don't know, i don't know much about waging war. i do know a little bit about living life. and these generals are writing absolutely crazy letters which i don't have time to read to a judge in a custody battle. >> right. >> a woman who has lost custody of her son, and in this country it is not easy for women to lose custody of children in these situations, the judge has decided she is a liar, she changed the kid's name without telling the father, took the kid out of state without telling the father, all sorts of crazy stuff documented in the case, and you have these two generals writing to the judge as if they know something about it, telling him that oh, no, no, she should get more custody of the child. these letters to the judge i think are the major evidence of just how out of it these two generals are. >> right. look, i don't know that any of us can pronounce on the rights and wrongs of any other person's family business, but what on

earth are these generals thinking of. do they not have enough to do? one was responsible for u.s. forces in afghanistan. as i recall, there may be a conflict going on there and there has been for some time. does the fbi not have enough to do that one of its agents can pursue what seems to be something driven by personal motives, never mind, whether he can keep his clothes on or not, you wonder, the general, general allen, who again, supreme allied commander nominee, but at the time engaged with the war in afghanistan is reported to have sent 20 to 30,000 pages of documents to these ladies. is there not enough work for either of these people there? >> there's not a reasonable judge in america that would read a letter from someone not involved in the case, doesn't know the evidence in the case, and in any way adjust their judgment accordingly, which

means these generals naively, stupidly wrote these letters september 20th, and on september 22nd, thinking they could actually influence a judge in this case. if they don't have lawyers that they would check with and say should i write this letter, then they are just incompetent at living their daily lives. >> the thing that was so strange to hear today was to watch the pentagon insist to reporters that there's nothing they know of that's untoward besides flirtation revealed in the e-mails between kelley and general allen. allen has had an absolutely star crossed tenure in afghanistan. he had scandal after scandal from the bails attacks that left 16 innocents dead to the koran burnings, to images coming out of marines urinating on a dead taliban militant, and he's been

able to level with a lot of us in the press about the progress not really being as rapid as he would like, and you see this happen, to have allen swept up in all of this was kind of cataclysmic at the pentagon. a lot of us went to sleep thinking it was a scandal about general petraeus, and then suddenly allen is involved in it. it was absolutely surreal. >> and richard, one of the things that happened over the years, petraeus has been glorified by the media, it is not something i felt capable of contributing to since i don't know anything about the military, never having spent a day in it, but that doesn't inhibit other reporters judging these guys as if they can tell who is good at this generaling thing and who isn't. and there's just a lot of revision the media itself has to go through on these people. >> look, petraeus has, it is no secret, he has run the best press operation of any general anywhere in the armed forces for many decades, and that has given

him no cushion, no insulation among the same reporters who gleefully report about this now. from the conservatives on the right, it is a sex story and compelling to the media. that's what it is. i used to work in the tabloid papers. this is a voyeuristic exercise. you can dress it up. people in the white house briefing room can try to articulate questions in an intelligent sounding way, but that's what it is, a sex story. it is painful for the individuals involved, but whatever his reputation on the battlefield has very little to do with this. >> spencer, as we know dwight eisenhower had an affair that was conducted reasonably and quietly, never broke out wildly like this. what you're seeing with petraeus and with general allen is associations with people who are not reliable people, they're not stable people, which means that they aren't stable people themselves.

i mean, these two generals are not stable enough to carefully choose their associations so their lives don't collapse as a result of it. >> i am not going to psychoanalyze either of these men. >> that's what i am here for, you don't have to. >> what seems to be the case with petraeus, he seemed to have thought that he could have survived this incident, and it is his boss, director clapper sort of sending him back to reality, in effect firing him. we know as recently as the week of october 29th, he had talked to the fbi. his mistress and the fbi had known he had confessed to the affair, and he had no intention of resigning. it is hard to understand how this guy could have thought he could survive this, and yet he did. >> i tell you, when i read the

crazy letters to the judge, i don't want these guys making any serious judgments about anything. they don't know what evidence is. it is just breathtaking. spencer ackerman, richard wolffe, thanks for joining me tonight. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up, the newspaper that's already picked its presidential candidate for 2016. and the senator, the republican senator who wants his party to go far to the left of the democratic party on some issues, including drug prosecutions. that's next in the "rewrite.". into their work,

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just how much change is coming to the republican party in the wake of their loss? one republican senator wants them to go left of the democrats on some major issues, including the war on drugs. that's next on the "rewrite." many people are struggling with issues related to mental health. by earning a degree in the field of counseling or psychology from capella university, you'll have the knowledge to make a difference in the lives of others. let's get started at capella.edu.

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the fast and furious "rewrite" of the losing republican party platform continues. a consensus has emerged among rewriters that the first place they can do business with the democrats and appeal to more voters is immigration reform. in the senate, democrats would need no more than a half dozen republicans to join them on immigration reform to pass a bill. the most important new republican immigration reform erin the senate emerged today. the man who many mistakenly think of as the most conservative republican senator. he is possibly the wackiest republican senator, but because is libertarian, he is liberal and conservative at the same

time, and so on immigration reform, senator rand paul is now the most liberal member of the united states senate. he told politico this morning he wants to carve a compromise immigration plan with an eventual path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, a proposal he believes could be palatable to conservatives. paul is working on a novel plan he says would assimilate many of the 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the country. quote, if we assimilate those who are here, however they got here, don't make it an easy path for citizenship, there would be an eventual path, but we don't make anybody tomorrow a citizen who came here illegally, but if they're willing to work, willing to pay taxes, i think we need to normalize those who are here. that is to the left of the democratic party position on

immigration, if there is a democratic party position on immigration. no one has been advocating a path to citizenship for everyone who is here illegally, but now rand paul is. the most the democrats have been pushing, if you can call it pushing, is some form of a dream act for kids that grew up in the united states and graduated from here, graduate from college, join our military, a narrow approach to immigration reform. the dream act does nothing to address the problems of the undocumented grandmothers among us. now comes rand paul saying he wants to go far beyond the dream act, and there's more. rand paul wants to work with the liberal chairman of the senate judiciary to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for some drug possession cases.

this is the part of libertarianism that is liberal. real libertarians are opposed to all drug laws. real libertarians say you should be able to consume anything you want, that you should be free to harm your body with whatever you choose to ingest. like his father before him, rand paul is a tortured libertarian, which is to say he is a republican libertarian who goes along with restricting reproductive freedom because his party tells him to, but the glimmers of real libertarianism that the paul family bring to the national stage include things we will hear from no other politician in washington. rand paul, like his father, wants to reduce, if not eliminate our military footprint overseas. this position is to the left of everyone in the democratic party. rand paul will be able to find no democratic co-sponsors for a

bill that would downsize the military as much as he would like. with his father, the perennial presidential candidate headed for retirement at the end of the year, politico asked rand paul if he will run for the republican presidential nomination in 2016. senator paul's reply was i'm interested in the national debate. and we should all be interested in having senator paul in the national debate, especially as a republican presidential candidate. he won't win a republican presidential nomination, of course, he has no better chance than his father did, but he will force republicans to listen to liberal ideas, just like his father did. he will also thrill the republicans with how conservative he is on tax and budget issues.

rand paul has paid his dues as a conservative, and seems to believe that in the wake of last week's republican defeat at the polls, he can now step forward and offer his more liberal ideas to widen the party's appeal to voters, as long as he never admits that they are liberal ideas. he told politico i think i might have the ability because nobody really questions at least not so far whether i'm conservative enough. senator paul told politico he wants to, quote, get out in front of rewriting the republican party platform because, quote, i want to show what conservatives would or can accept. and so the man who has major problems with the civil rights act, something he would have voted against if he were in the senate at the time, is tonight

intent on leading the republican party toward some positions to the left of the democratic party. such is the magic of american politics in this era of democrats, defeated republicans, and libertarians. i've been coloring liz's hair for years. but lately she's been coming in with less gray than usual. what's she up to? [ female announcer ] root touch-up by nice'n easy has the most shade choices, designed to match even salon color in just 10 minutes. with root touch-up, all they see is you.

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i have made it clear that, you know, i will certainly stay on until the president nominates someone and that transition can occur, but i think after 20 years, and it will be 20 years, of being on the high-wire of american politics and all of the

challenges that come with that, it would be probably a good idea to just find out how tired i am. everyone always says that when they leave these jobs. >> in the earliest ever presidential candidacy endorsement by an american newspaper, today buffalo news endorsed hillary clinton for president in 2016. the 139-year-old newspaper doesn't have to know who the republican nominee is going to be. they don't have to know who the other democratic candidates for president will be. the buffalo news knows enough. they want the woman they endorsed twice already in her senate campaigns in new york to become president of the united states in 2017. it is not as if the buffalo news doesn't know who the other likely candidates are, especially on the democratic side. the buffalo news has always had a sharp political team delivering its coverage of presidential politics.

they know well at the buffalo news that the hugely popular governor of new york, andrew cuomo, who they endorsed in his gubernatorial campaign is laying the ground work to run in 2016. they know in 2016, elizabeth warren will have been in the senate the same time barack obama was in the senate before he ran for president. they saw a massachusetts governor, patrick and the editors of the buffalo news know about all those people, potential candidacies, and they've made their choice. hillary in 2016. joining me now, jonathan allen, senior washington correspondent for politico, co-author of an upcoming book on hillary clinton's rise and her potential 2016 presidential bid. jonathan, what else does hillary clinton need? she has the buffalo news endorsement.

what's she waiting for? >> lawrence, you know new york politics better than i do. that's an upstate newspaper endorsing her, certainly in a democratic area. that's the area she had to win when she ran for senate. she needs a lot of other things. first and foremost, i would say nothing she has done or people around her have done have disqualified her over the past four years in secretary of state role. you have seen arise in her popularity. that's the beginning of a drum beat you'll hear in the next two years as she thinks about this, makes a decision. that's a lot of people that want her to run. you know politicians as well as anybody. they've got a little bit of an ego, a sense of duty, they believe in public service and it can be very hard to say no when there are a lot of people asking you to run. that said, not at all clear she has made a decision yet, and certainly she doesn't have to for at least another couple years. >> i know a lot of people in washington have never read buffalo news or held it in their

hands which i have done many times in buffalo, including visiting them for editorial board meetings and such. they are a serious newspaper, most important newspaper north of new york city in the state, and hillary clinton knows that this is early and obviously they're having fun at the buffalo news, but they mean it, and she also knows that all of the people in the party calling for her to run mean it. she heard that call once before when she was first lady, and charlie rangel and others said run for senate. we haven't seen her turn down that call in the past. >> speaks to her as a person. this is someone that feels that strong draw to public service. when she was first lady in arkansas, she was chairman of legal services corporation under jimmy carter, people don't know that, it is the government agency that does legal services for the poor. this is somebody that cares about public service a lot. >> jonathan allen, i t